History

Timely Publications

Pulp-magazine publisher
Martin Goodman founded the company later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939.[3][4] Goodman, who had started with a
Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. Launching his new line from his existing company's offices at 330 West 42nd Street, New York City, he officially held the titles of
editor,
managing editor, and
business manager, with Abraham Goodman (Martin's brother)[5] officially listed as publisher.[4]

Goodman hired his wife's cousin,[13] Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939.[14] When editor Simon left the company in late 1941,[15] Goodman made Lieber—by then writing pseudonymously as "
Stan Lee"—interim editor of the comics line, a position Lee kept for decades except for three years during his military service in
World War II. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles.

Goodman's business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff.[10] One of these
shell companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55 (May 1944). As well, some comics' covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12 (Winter 1946–47), were labeled "A Marvel Magazine" many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961.[16]

Goodman began using the globe logo of the Atlas News Company, the newsstand-distribution company he owned,[18] on comics
cover-dated November 1951 even though another company, Kable News, continued to distribute his comics through the August 1952 issues.[19] This globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications.[20]

In 1961, writer-editor
Stan Lee revolutionized
superhero comics by introducing superheroes designed to appeal to older readers than the predominantly child audiences of the medium. Modern Marvel's first superhero team, the titular stars of The Fantastic Four #1 (Nov. 1961),[24] broke convention with other comic book archetypes of the time by squabbling, holding grudges both deep and petty, and eschewing anonymity or secret identities in favor of celebrity status. Subsequently, Marvel comics developed a reputation for focusing on characterization and adult issues to a greater extent than most superhero comics before them, a quality which the new generation of older readers appreciated.[25] This applied to The Amazing Spider-Man title in particular, which turned out to be Marvel's most successful book. Its young hero suffered from self-doubt and mundane problems like any other teenager, something with which many readers could identify.

Lee and freelance artist and eventual co-plotter
Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four originated in a
Cold War culture that led their creators to revise the superhero conventions of previous eras to better reflect the psychological spirit of their age.[26] Eschewing such comic-book tropes as secret identities and even costumes at first, having a monster as one of the heroes, and having its characters bicker and complain in what was later called a "superheroes in the real world" approach, the series represented a change that proved to be a great success.[27]

Marvel often presented flawed superheroes, freaks, and misfits—unlike the perfect, handsome, athletic heroes found in previous traditional comic books. Some Marvel heroes looked like villains and monsters such as the Hulk and the Thing. This
naturalistic approach even extended into topical politics.

Comics historian Mike Benton also noted:

In the world of [rival
DC Comics']
Superman comic books, communism did not exist. Superman rarely crossed national borders or involved himself in political disputes.[28] From 1962 to 1965, there were more communists [in Marvel Comics] than on the subscription list of Pravda. Communist agents attack Ant-Man in his laboratory, red henchmen jump the Fantastic Four on the moon, and
Viet Cong guerrillas take potshots at Iron Man.[29]

All of these elements struck a chord with the older readers, such as college-aged adults. In 1965, Spider-Man and the Hulk were both featured in Esquire magazine's list of 28 college campus heroes, alongside
John F. Kennedy and
Bob Dylan.[30] In 2009, writer Geoff Boucher reflected that, "Superman and DC Comics instantly seemed like boring old
Pat Boone; Marvel felt like
The Beatles and the
British Invasion. It was Kirby's artwork with its tension and
psychedelia that made it perfect for the times—or was it Lee's bravado and melodrama, which was somehow insecure and brash at the same time?"[31]

Cadence Industries ownership

In 1968, while selling 50 million comic books a year, company founder Goodman revised the constraining distribution arrangement with Independent News he had reached under duress during the Atlas years, allowing him now to release as many titles as demand warranted.[18] Late that year, he sold Marvel Comics and its parent company, Magazine Management, to the
Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation, with Goodman remaining as publisher.[33] In 1969, Goodman finally ended his distribution deal with Independent by signing with
Curtis Circulation Company.[18]

In 1971, the
United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare approached Marvel Comics editor-in-chief
Stan Lee to do a comic book story about drug abuse. Lee agreed and wrote a three-part
Spider-Man story portraying drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. However, the industry's self-censorship board, the
Comics Code Authority, refused to approve the story because of the presence of narcotics, deeming the context of the story irrelevant. Lee, with Goodman's approval, published the story regardless in The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (May–July 1971), without the Comics Code seal. The market reacted well to the storyline, and the CCA subsequently revised the Code the same year.[34]

Goodman retired as publisher in 1972 and installed his son, Chip, as publisher.[35] Shortly thereafter, Lee succeeded him as publisher and also became Marvel's president[35] for a brief time.[36] During his time as president, he appointed his associate editor, prolific writer
Roy Thomas, as editor-in-chief. Thomas added "Stan Lee Presents" to the opening page of each comic book.[35]

Marvel was able to capitalize on its successful superhero comics of the previous decade by acquiring a new newsstand distributor and greatly expanding its comics line. Marvel pulled ahead of rival
DC Comics in 1972, during a time when the price and format of the standard newsstand comic were in flux.[38] Goodman increased the price and size of Marvel's November 1971 cover-dated comics from 15 cents for 36 pages total to 25 cents for 52 pages. DC followed suit, but Marvel the following month dropped its comics to 20 cents for 36 pages, offering a lower-priced product with a higher distributor discount.[39]

In 1973, Perfect Film and Chemical renamed itself as Cadence Industries and renamed Magazine Management as Marvel Comics Group.[40] Goodman, now disconnected from Marvel, set up a new company called
Seaboard Periodicals in 1974, reviving Marvel's old Atlas name for a new
Atlas Comics line, but this lasted only a year and a half.[41]
In the mid-1970s a decline of the newsstand distribution network affected Marvel. Cult hits such as Howard the Duck fell victim to the distribution problems, with some titles reporting low sales when in fact the first specialty comic book stores resold them at a later date.[citation needed] But by the end of the decade, Marvel's fortunes were reviving, thanks to the rise of
direct market distribution—selling through those same comics-specialty stores instead of newsstands.

Marvel ventured into audio in 1975 with a radio series and a record, both had Stan Lee as narrator. The radio series was
Fantastic Four. The record was Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero concept album for music fans.[42]

In 1978,
Jim Shooter became Marvel's editor-in-chief. Although a controversial personality, Shooter cured many of the procedural ills at Marvel, including repeatedly missed deadlines. During Shooter's nine-year tenure as editor-in-chief,
Chris Claremont and
John Byrne's run on the Uncanny X-Men and
Frank Miller's run on Daredevil became critical and commercial successes.[46] Shooter brought Marvel into the rapidly evolving
direct market,[47] institutionalized creator royalties, starting with the
Epic Comics imprint for
creator-owned material in 1982; introduced company-wide crossover story arcs with Contest of Champions and Secret Wars; and in 1986 launched the ultimately unsuccessful
New Universe line to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Marvel Comics imprint.
Star Comics, a children-oriented line differing from the regular Marvel titles, was briefly successful during this period.

Marvel earned a great deal of money with their 1980s children's comics imprint
Star Comics and they earned a great deal more money and worldwide success during the comic book boom of the early 1990s, launching the successful
2099 line of comics set in the future (Spider-Man 2099, etc.) and the creatively daring though commercially unsuccessful
Razorline imprint of
superhero comics created by novelist and filmmaker
Clive Barker.[50][51] In 1990, Marvel began selling
Marvel Universe Cards with trading card maker
SkyBox International. These were collectible trading cards that featured the characters and events of the Marvel Universe. The 1990s saw the rise of
variant covers, cover enhancements,
swimsuit issues, and company-wide crossovers that affected the overall continuity of the
Marvel Universe.

In late 1994, Marvel acquired the comic book distributor
Heroes World Distribution to use as its own exclusive distributor.[58] As the industry's other major publishers made exclusive distribution deals with other companies, the ripple effect resulted in the survival of only one other major distributor in North America,
Diamond Comic Distributors Inc.[59][60] Then, by the middle of the decade, the industry had slumped, and in December 1996 MEG filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[49] In early 1997, when Marvel's Heroes World endeavor failed, Diamond also forged an exclusive deal with Marvel[61]—giving the company its own section of its comics catalog Previews.[62]

In 1996, Marvel had some of its titles participate in "
Heroes Reborn", a crossover that allowed Marvel to relaunch some of its flagship characters such as the
Avengers and the
Fantastic Four, and
outsource them to the studios of two of the former Marvel artists turned Image Comics founders, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. The relaunched titles, which saw the characters transported to a parallel universe with a history distinct from the mainstream Marvel Universe, were a solid success amidst a generally struggling industry,[63] but Marvel discontinued the experiment after a one-year run and returned the characters to the Marvel Universe proper.

In 1998, the company launched the imprint
Marvel Knights, taking place just outside Marvel continuity with better production qualtity. The imprint was helmed by soon-to-become editor-in-chief
Joe Quesada; it featured tough, gritty stories showcasing such characters as the
Daredevil,[65]Inhumans and
Black Panther.

With the new millennium, Marvel Comics emerged from bankruptcy and again began diversifying its offerings. In 2001, Marvel withdrew from the
Comics Code Authority and established its own
Marvel Rating System for comics. The first title from this era to not have the code was X-Force #119 (October 2001). Marvel also created new
imprints, such as
MAX (an explicit-content line) and
Marvel Adventures (developed for child audiences). In addition, the company created an
alternate universe imprint,
Ultimate Marvel, that allowed the company to
reboot its major titles by revising and updating its characters to introduce to a new generation.

Some of its characters have been turned into successful film franchises, such as the Men in Black movie series, starting in 1997, Blade movie series, starting in 1998, X-Men movie series, starting in 2000, and the highest grossing series Spider-Man, beginning in 2002.[66]

Marvel's
Conan the Barbarian title stopped in 1993 after 275 issues. The Savage Sword of Conan magazine had 235 issues. Marvel published additional titles including miniseries until 2000 for a total of 650 issues. Conan was pick up by Dark Horse three years later.[37]

In a cross-promotion, the November 1, 2006, episode of the CBS soap opera The Guiding Light, titled "She's a Marvel", featured the character Harley Davidson Cooper (played by
Beth Ehlers) as a superheroine named the Guiding Light.[67] The character's story continued in an eight-page backup feature, "A New Light", that appeared in several Marvel titles published November 1 and 8.[68] Also that year, Marvel created a
wiki on its Web site.[69]

In late 2007 the company launched
Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, a digital archive of over 2,500 back issues available for viewing, for a monthly or annual subscription fee.[70]

In 2009 Marvel Comics closed its Open Submissions Policy, in which the company had accepted unsolicited samples from aspiring comic book artists, saying the time-consuming review process had produced no suitably professional work.[71] The same year, the company commemorated its 70th anniversary, dating to its inception as
Timely Comics, by issuing the one-shot Marvel Mystery Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 and a variety of other special issues.[72][73]

In April 2013, Marvel and other Disney conglomerate components began announcing joint projects. With
ABC, a Once Upon a Time graphic novel was announced for publication in September.[86] With Disney, Marvel announced in October 2013 that in January 2014 it would release its first title under their joint "Disney Kingdoms" imprint "Seekers of the Weird", a five-issue miniseries.[75] On January 3, 2014, fellow Disney subsidiary
Lucasfilm announced that as of 2015,
Star Wars comics would once again be published by Marvel.[87]

Marvel Legacy was the company's Fall 2017 relaunch banner starting in September. The banner had comics with
lenticular variant covers which required comic book stores to double their regular issue order to be able to order the variants. The owner of two Comix Experience stores complained about the set up of forcing retailers to be stuck with copies they cannot sell for the variant that they can sell. With other complaints too, Marvel did adjust down requirements for new titles no adjustment was made for any other. Thusforthly
MyComicShop.com and at least 70 other comic book stores were boycotting these variant covers.[89] With a handful of Marvel movies, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Logan, Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Homecoming, in theaters, none of those characters' titles were in the top 10 and even the Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series was canceled. Thus films do not affect comic book sales.[90] Conan Properties International announced on January 12, 2018 that Conan would return to Marvel in early 2019.[37]

On January 19, 2018, Joshua Yehl, editor of ign.com, speculated on potential changes if Disney's
Proposed acquisition of 21st Century Fox goes through. He expects Fox franchises licensed out to other firms would be moved to Marvel and that Fox's Marvel film properties would be treated better by the publishing division.[91] However, Marvel had licensed
Archie Comics to publish Marvel Digests collections for the newsstand market.[92] While Disney has licensed
IDW Publishing to produce the classic, all-ages Disney comics since the Marvel purchase[93] and a Big Hero 6 comic book to go along with the
TV series despite the fact that the
Disney movie was based on a
Marvel Comic book. Then on July 17, 2018, Marvel Entertainment announced the licensing of Marvel characters to IDW for a line of middle-grade reader market comic books to start publishing in November 2018.[92]

Editors-in-chief

Marvel's chief editor originally held the title of "editor". This head editor's title later became "editor-in-chief".
Joe Simon was the company's first true chief-editor, with publisher
Martin Goodman, who had served as titular editor only and outsourced editorial operations.

In 1994 Marvel briefly abolished the position of editor-in-chief, replacing
Tom DeFalco with five group editors-in-chief. As Carl Potts described the 1990s editorial arrangement:

In the early '90s, Marvel had so many titles that there were three Executive Editors, each overseeing approximately 1/3 of the line.
Bob Budiansky was the third Executive Editor [following the previously appointed
Mark Gruenwald and Potts]. We all answered to Editor-in-Chief Tom DeFalco and Publisher
Mike Hobson. All three Executive Editors decided not to add our names to the already crowded credits on the Marvel titles. Therefore it wasn't easy for readers to tell which titles were produced by which Executive Editor … In late '94, Marvel reorganized into a number of different publishing divisions, each with its own Editor-in-Chief.[98]

Marvel reinstated the overall editor-in-chief position in 1995 with
Bob Harras.

Executive Editors

Originally called associate editor when Marvel's chief editor just carried the title of editor, the title of the next highest editorial position became executive editor under the chief editor title of editor-in-chief. The title of associate editor later was revived under the editor-in-chief as an editorial position in charge of few titles under the direction of an editor and without an assistant editor.

In 2017, Marvel held a 38.30% share of the comics market, compared to its competitor
DC Comics' 33.93%.[106] By comparison, the companies respectively held 33.50% and 30.33% shares in 2013, and 40.81% and 29.94% shares in 2008.[107]

Marvel characters in other media

Marvel characters and stories have been adapted to many other media. Some of these adaptations were produced by Marvel Comics and its sister company,
Marvel Studios, while others were produced by companies licensing Marvel material.

Collectible card games

The RPG industry brought the development of the
collectible card game (CCG) in the early 1990s which there were soon Marvel characters were featured in CCG of their own starting in 1995 with
Fleer's
OverPower (1995–1999). Later collectible card game were:

Video games

Video games based on Marvel characters go back to 1984 and the Atari game, Spider-Man. Since then several dozen video games have been released and all have been produced by outside licensees. In 2014, Disney Infinity 2.0: Marvel Super Heroes was released that brought Marvel characters to the existing
Disney sandbox video game.

Films

As of the start of September 2015, films based on Marvel's properties represent the highest-grossing U.S. franchise, having grossed over $7.7 billion [112] as part of a worldwide gross of over $18 billion.

Prose novels

Marvel first licensed two prose novels to
Bantam Books, who printed The Avengers Battle the Earth Wrecker by
Otto Binder (1967) and Captain America: The Great Gold Steal by
Ted White (1968). Various publishers took up the licenses from 1978 to 2002. Also, with the various licensed films being released beginning in 1997, various publishers put out movie
novelizations.[113] In 2003, following publication of the prose
young adult novelMary Jane, starring
Mary Jane Watson from the
Spider-Man mythos, Marvel announced the formation of the publishing
imprintMarvel Press.[114] However, Marvel moved back to licensing with Pocket Books from 2005 to 2008.[113] With few books issued under the imprint, Marvel and
Disney Books Group relaunched Marvel Press in 2011 with the Marvel Origin Storybooks line.[115]

Television programs

Many television series, both live-action and animated, have based their productions on Marvel Comics characters. These include series for popular characters such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Avengers, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, the Punisher, the Defenders, S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Deadpool, Legion, and others. Additionally, a handful of television movies, usually also pilots, based on Marvel Comics characters have been made.

Years after Disney purchased Marvel in late 2009,
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts plans on creating original Marvel attractions at their theme parks,[118][119] with
Hong Kong Disneyland becoming the first Disney theme park to feature a
Marvel attraction.[120][121] Due to the licensing agreement with Universal Studios, signed prior to Disney's purchase of Marvel, Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disney are barred from having Marvel characters in their parks.[122] However, this only includes characters that Universal is currently using, other characters in their "families" (X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc.), and the villains associated with said characters.[116] This clause has allowed Walt Disney World to have meet and greets, merchandise, attractions and more with other Marvel characters not associated with the characters at Islands of Adventures, such as
Star-Lord and
Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy.[123][124]

However, film producer and comics historian
Michael Uslan partly debunked the story in a letter published in Alter Ego #43 (December 2004), pp. 43–44

Irwin said he never played golf with Goodman, so the story is untrue. I heard this story more than a couple of times while sitting in the lunchroom at DC's 909 Third Avenue and 75 Rockefeller Plaza office as
Sol Harrison and [production chief]
Jack Adler were schmoozing with some of us … who worked for DC during our college summers.... [T]he way I heard the story from Sol was that Goodman was playing with one of the heads of Independent News, not DC Comics (though DC owned Independent News). … As the distributor of DC Comics, this man certainly knew all the sales figures and was in the best position to tell this tidbit to Goodman. … Of course, Goodman would want to be playing golf with this fellow and be in his good graces. … Sol worked closely with Independent News' top management over the decades and would have gotten this story straight from the horse's mouth.

Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the JLA's strong sales, confirmably directed his comics editor,
Stan Lee, to create a comic-book series about a team of superheroes. According to Lee in Origins of Marvel Comics (
Simon and Schuster/Fireside Books, 1974), p. 16:
"Martin mentioned that he had noticed one of the titles published by National Comics seemed to be selling better than most. It was a book called The [sic] Justice League of America and it was composed of a team of superheroes. … ' If the Justice League is selling ', spoke he, 'why don't we put out a comic book that features a team of superheroes?'"

^Writer-artist
Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner had actually been created for an undistributed movie-theater giveaway comic, Motion Picture Funnies Weekly earlier that year, with the previously unseen, eight-page original story expanded by four pages for Marvel Comics #1.

^
abPer researcher Keif Fromm, Alter Ego #49, p. 4 (caption), Marvel Comics #1, cover-dated October 1939, quickly sold out 80,000 copies, prompting Goodman to produce a second printing, cover-dated November 1939. The latter appears identical except for a black bar over the October date in the inside front-cover
indicia, and the November date added at the end. That sold approximately 800,000 copies—a large figure in the market of that time. Also per Fromm, the first issue of Captain America Comics sold nearly one million copies.

^
abDaniels, Les (1991). Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. New York City:
Harry N. Abrams. pp. 27, 32–33.
ISBN0-8109-3821-9. Timely Publications became the name under which Goodman first published a comic book line. He eventually created a number of companies to publish comics … but Timely was the name by which Goodman's Golden Age comics were known. . . . Marvel wasn't always Marvel; in the early 1940s the company was known as Timely Comics....

^Per
Les Daniels in Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, pp. 67–68: "The success of EC had a definite influence on Marvel. As Stan Lee recalls, 'Martin Goodman would say, "Stan, let's do a different kind of book," and it was usually based on how the competition was doing. When we found that EC's horror books were doing well, for instance, we published a lot of horror books'".

^Roberts, Randy; Olson, James S. (1998). American Experiences: Readings in American History: Since 1865 (4 ed.).
Addison–Wesley. p. 317.
ISBN978-0-321-01031-5. Marvel Comics employed a realism in both characterization and setting in its superhero titles that was unequaled in the comic book industry.

^Comics historian Greg Theakston has suggested that the decision to include monsters and initially to distance the new breed of superheroes from costumes was a conscious one, and born of necessity. Since DC distributed Marvel's output at the time, Theakston theorizes that, "Goodman and Lee decided to keep their superhero line looking as much like their horror line as they possibly could," downplaying "the fact that [Marvel] was now creating heroes" with the effect that they ventured "into deeper waters, where DC had never considered going". See Ro, pp. 87–88

^Levitz, Paul (2010). 75 Years of DC Comics The Art of Modern Mythmaking.
Taschen America. p. 451.
ISBN978-3-8365-1981-6. Marvel took advantage of this moment to surpass DC in title production for the first time since 1957, and in sales for the first time ever.